NSA Flap Shows Obama's Many Paradoxes

Simple people aren't often elected president. Instead, presidents tend come in complicated packages. So it is with Barack Obama. He is a man of many paradoxes, something that has never been more apparent than in recent days.

He is the constitutional-law professor and civil libertarian who, it's now become clearer, has overseen expanded intelligence surveillance programs that he acknowledges shade civil liberties. He is the supposed darling of the press whose administration has overseen more aggressive pursuit of...